POLLIN' for nothing and yer chicks for free - Dire Straits - BROTHERS IN ARMS

tbh I like this album and generally like this band, though for me they're strictly an atmosphere and mood band who sometimes managed to get a good hook in there.

i really just like listening to those dudes kill it on their instruments on the earlier albums and they don't sound like much of a band here.. plenty of atmosphere but it's just interspersed with too much lameness, imo

tbf this album def sounds like the MOR radio of my childhood

tbh I like this album and generally like this band, though for me they're strictly an atmosphere and mood band who sometimes managed to get a good hook in there.

― nomar, Thursday, September 7, 2017 3:54 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM - Dire Straits always seemed a weird stadium band, pretty much the majority of their output is downbeat.

the intro to money for nothing is breathtaking in a special fx fireworks kind of way

eheh, otm.
I remember being so impressed by it as a kid with the dad's hifi system at high volume !

This was the first album of Dire Straits' "headband era", wasn't it? (He started wearing it circa 1983) ... Apparently, it was for practical rather than aesthetic reasons.

Talking about Sting, I find him singing "MONEH FOR NOTHING! CHIX FOR FREEEEEEE!" over the outro in his falsetto rather comical, given how pretentious his own lyrics can be.

i really just like listening to those dudes kill it on their instruments on the earlier albums and they don't sound like much of a band here.. plenty of atmosphere but it's just interspersed with too much lameness, imo

― brimstead, Thursday, September 7, 2017 4:52 AM (six hours ago)

By this album, they'd become The Mark Knopfler Project. 1st DS album is superb esp. "In the gallery"

otm. Pretty funny how anonymous the other band members were/are for such a stadium-sized band

OTM - Dire Straits always seemed a weird stadium band, pretty much the majority of their output is downbeat.

― more Allegro-like (Turrican), Wednesday, September 6, 2017 11:04 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it's weird they're like Pink Floyd but with this fake american heartland thing going on

and headbands

Funnily enough, the title track of this album kinda reminds me a little of Gilmour-era Floyd.

Heh, I see upper mississippi said as much upthread!

Knopfler has a really narrow range as a singer, too.

Funnily enough, the title track of this album kinda reminds me a little of Gilmour-era Floyd.

also the floyd album that came out prior to BIA is obviously about the falklands war too

Related to guitar, there are stories that Knopfler was going for Billy Gibbons' ZZ Top guitar tone for "Money for Nothing."

I think Knopfler may have asked Gibbons about his guitar tone? Well, according to Gibbons anyway. Unsurprisingly, Gibbons didn't tell him anything - guitarists are generally a bit funny about how they achieve their guitar sounds.

I waaaant myyyyy
I waaaant myyyyy eeeemmm teeeee veeeee!

*drum solo*

I really hope there is an earnest academic treatise out there on the Geordie creation of late 20c adult oriented pop rock - from Ferry through Sting to Knopfler and Mcaloon. If not I may have to write it.

i voted for so far away on here but i don't think i've heard the whole album since it came out. the only DS i still listen to every blue moon is the first side of making movies which is perfect and i will always love it. i wouldn't be able to vote in a poll for that though because i just think of that side as one long song. there was probably already a poll anyway...

xps: when i relistened i sort of thought 'one world' was a bit zz toppish too, reminded me of i dunno... tv dinners perhaps? the character in that song sounds like he stepped out of a top song anyhow

I really hope there is an earnest academic treatise out there on the Geordie creation of late 20c adult oriented pop rock - from Ferry through Sting to Knopfler and Mcaloon. If not I may have to write it.

don't leave chris rea out stevie!

McAloon and Rea aren't geordies, for one thing...

but Neil Tennant is!

Yes, he is, although you wouldn't think it by the way he speaks. Same with Sting.

Ferry isn't a geordie, but TGPT is.

there goes my idea for a geordie aor tribute act, dire rea

lol

Rea is a smoggie.

Scott OTM re: the first side of Making Movies - it's perfect. Yeah, there was already a poll for it and unsurprisingly 'Les Boys' didn't win.

Listening to this album again now and... the bass playing on 'One World' is slap-tastic... I don't seem to recall any slap bass on any other Dire Straits LP... is that really Illsley or some session player?

wiki sez that Tony Levin is on the record, and that sure as hell sounds like him on "One World." sessioneer Neil Jason is on it too, so that means that John Illsley, the only other guy to stay in the band and one lucky-ass dude as such, probly got the gas face for most of the record.

"stay in the band the whole way"

Yeah, now that you've mentioned it, I think 'One World' is Levin... and I'd guess that Neil Jason played on 'Your Latest Trick' and the outro to 'Why Worry' ...

I think Illsley and Knopfler are still friends, whereas Knopfler and his brother who played on the first two (possibly three) Dire Straits records still haven't spoken since he left the band. There was some article only 2 years ago about David Knopfler where he mentioned they were still estranged.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I really like all of Dire Straits total Gilmour/Floyd type epics like "Brothers in Arms".

I recall this being THE album for showing off how pristine those newfangled CD players sounded back in 1985.

And everyone OTM about Making Movies - one of the all-time worst album closers blighting an otherwise exquisite record.

nick cave should do an ep of dire straits piano covers. think romeo & juliet would work really well, brothers in arms too. also les boys in the style of nick the stripper

This is my favorite album to play at a maximum volume setting of "2" when I want music playing but don't care very much about what the music is.

future ILM poll right there

Anyone else find it weird that the first song on the album is So Far Away rather than Money for Nothing, which seems almost designed to start a record?

'So Far Away' is more representative of the record, though...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Five votes for 'Walk of Life'!

Anyone else find it weird that the first song on the album is So Far Away rather than Money for Nothing, which seems almost designed to start a record?

definitely ! I wonder how they could decide otherwise since MFN is basically just an intro... a bit like the THX opening big sound test !

As a kid I had this album as a tape copied by my uncle with an edited version of the Money for Nothing compilation on the other side and had assumed (up until now!) that the weird running order of BIA was an artefact of his editing.

I wish "Money For Nothing" would crawl under a rubbish bin and set itself on fire.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, September 6, 2017

This one too.

boooooo

Nope

FUN HATER